WASHINGTON, D.C. – Justin Trudeau tried to make several points on the death of Fidel Castro. He wanted to salute a man of history, invoke his father’s memory, express his personal condolences and affirm Canada’s independence on Cuba.

He did none of those things – at least not in a credible, persuasive way. It has brought him nothing but grief, his worst moment since his infelicitous quip on “whipping out our CF-18s.”

Let’s imagine how these things happen. The prime minister is in Africa, away from his extended circle of advisers and writers. Word comes of Castro’s death while they are all asleep in Ottawa. An official statement is needed.

Perhaps Trudeau dictated it himself; it sounds like his voice. More likely it was drafted by a young assistant who knew little about Cuba, Castro or Canada, and the result was an embarrassment.

Perhaps it was the same Shakespeare in his office who wrote the prime minister’s statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day last January. In three paragraphs paying tribute to “the millions of victims” of the Holocaust, it did not mention Jews. The point seemed to be that other victims – gypsies, homosexuals – should be equally represented, forgetting that the Holocaust was overwhelmingly a Jewish tragedy.

Trudeau’s statement on Castro did half the job. Castro was “a legendary revolutionary,” as he said. As a young, charismatic commander, Castro led a rag-tag army out of the mountains, waged a brilliant guerrilla war, and brought down the murderous, corrupt regime of Fulgencio Batista.

This was Castro the liberator. It was the Castro whom Pierre Trudeau found charming and heroic, who unseated evil and brought literacy and health care. Pierre Trudeau spoke Spanish with Castro. They were friends. What son wouldn’t be touched that Castro attended his father’s funeral?

Sadly, Pierre Trudeau saw this Castro but not the other – the hothead who urged the Soviets to use nuclear weapons during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Or the author of murder, incarceration, torture, repression and corruption which lasted in Cuba long after democracy came to Latin America. If Cuba was not a totalitarian state – Castro was not Mao Zedong– it was an authoritarian state.

That did not bother Pierre Trudeau, the strong man of Quebec who crushed the separatists during the October Crisis, the right response in 1970. But the great man of his generation, Canada’s lawgiver and nation-builder, could never see the flaws in himself (such as sitting out the Second World War). Nor could he see the flaws in his confrère.

A more mature, nuanced statement from Justin Trudeau would have praised the young Castro who unseated a dictator and established a new order. It would have expressed support for Cubans and their warm relationship with Canada.

Instead a leaden pen in Madagascar called Castro “a controversial figure,” which has drenched Trudeau in ridicule at home, and here in Washington, too. Trudeau was not helped by the tin-eared Stéphane Dion, who in turn called Castro “iconic.”

Had Trudeau’s statement expressed some skepticism of Castro in power, it might have given him the credibility here to urge Donald Trump not to reverse Barack Obama’s opening to Havana.

Under Pierre Trudeau and other prime ministers, Canada has always tried to be a voice of conciliation with Cuba. This does not mean that we liked Castro or his brother, Raoul, just that we knew the way to change Cuba was to engage it.

The success of Obama’s approach – one of the accomplishments of his administration – was to reverse the tone of the last 50 years. The U.S. economic embargo never worked. It kept Americans and their money out, but it did not force the regime to liberalize.

Canada saw a better way. It still does.

Trudeau’s valentine to Fidel tarnishes his stature as a rising international figure. One misguided statement in the hollow of the night has made Canada look soft and unserious.

Andrew Cohen, a Canadian author, professor and journalist, is a Fulbright Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C. Email: andrewzohen@yahoo.ca

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